Jed Dietz, Founding Director of the Maryland Film Festival (MdFF) and prime mover in Baltimore’s cinema renaissance over two decades, will retire this fall, MdFF announced today. Dietz will continue as a consultant to the organization, a board member, and will coordinate MdFF’s Maryland Filmmakers Fellowship.

Sandra L. Gibson, a nationally recognized leader in arts management and administration and a current consultant with MdFF, will become Interim Director on November 1. The board will launch a national search for an Executive Director this fall.

Dietz, 70, created the Maryland Film Festival in 1999 with the belief that Baltimore could and should be another national center for the production and appreciation of film. Over 20 years, the Festival has emerged as a prominent and respected champion of the breadth of the movie art form - an annual five-day celebration of cinema attracting movies of all types, and the people who make them and media from around the world. The Festival has helped launch the careers of noted filmmakers, including Greta Gerwig (writer/director Lady Bird), Barry Jenkins (writer/director Moonlight), Joe Swanberg (writer/director Drinking Buddies) and David Lowery (writer/director Pete’s Dragon).

In 2018, the Festival set an attendance record with more than 12,000 attendees.

In April 2017, Dietz hosted the dedication of Baltimore’s newly rescued historic 1915 Parkway Theatre, the result of an $18 million fundraising campaign. The restored Stavros Niarchos Foundation Parkway Theatre and two other adjoining theaters screen independent and classic films daily and is the home of the Maryland Film Festival. In just over a year, the Parkway has brought hundreds of new films to Baltimore, hosted filmmakers from around the world, welcomed students from the Hopkins and MICA film programs every weekday during the school year, and showcased student films from around the region.

Through the Maryland Filmmakers Fellowship created by Dietz in 1997, the MdFF has also directly supported screenplays that are first developed at the famous Sundance Labs, resulting in 18 independent films from first-time directors. Among others, the fellowships gave an early kick-start to the careers of artists including director Rodrigo Garcia (Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her, Mother and Child, In Treatment) and Marielle Heller (Diary of a Teenage Girl, Can You Ever Forgive Me?). One of the earliest screenplays the Fellowship supported was Lift, which starred a young Kerry Washington.

“The Maryland Film Festival was Jed’s brainchild, and he has grown it over the years into one of the preeminent festivals in the country and a very significant cultural event here in Baltimore,” said Tad Glenn, board chair of the MdFF. “As the film community continues to grow in Baltimore, the Parkway will be an important hub for filmmakers and audiences.”

Incoming Interim Director Sandra L. Gibson is the former President and CEO of the Association of Performing Arts Professionals and founding board member and Chief Operating Officer of Americans for the Arts. She has worked as a consultant since 2011 with clients including the Smithsonian Institution and Baltimore’s Reginald F. Lewis Museum of African American History and Culture, and the foundation planning a National China Garden at the U.S. National Arboretum.

Gibson’s experience in arts and cultural programming began with her tenure at the American Film Institute (AFI), where she held a number of positions including three years as Director of Independent Filmmaker Program and Distribution Programs and more than five years as Director of West Coast Campus Operations and Personnel.

“Sandra is the right person to provide a seamless transition,” said Tad Glenn. “She and Jed have worked very well together, and she understands and appreciates our history and unique position in independent film.”

“Creating opportunities for talented, energetic and cutting-edge filmmakers and bringing them together with the great audiences here has been one of the most fulfilling achievements of my life,” said Jed Dietz. “I love the film community in Baltimore. I am excited to be part of the growth of this art form and this industry, both for the past 20 years and in the future.”

Baltimore’s Filmmakers and Nonprofit Leaders Share Their Thoughts

John Waters – Filmmaker

“The Parkway is miraculously up and running, and Jed Dietz is leaving after years of obsessive planning and leadership (and boy, will I miss him), but now is the time for our artiest theater to really soar, even explode with new ideas. I’ve been here from the beginning and it’s time for you to join our cinema cult and make this realized dream a movement that all Baltimore can embrace with movie fanatic abandon.”

Ramona Diaz – Filmmaker

"When I moved to Baltimore from Austin in 2003, Jed was the first film person I met. He approached me after my film Imelda premiered at Sundance and said he had heard that I just moved to his city. I was apprehensive about moving because I didn't think there was a film community that I could be part of in Baltimore. Jed disabused me of that immediately and opened up the world of the Baltimore film scene for me. He eats and breathes cinema and has always been the most ardent booster of emerging filmmakers. So in a way, I'm in denial that he's retiring. Say it isn't so, Jed. Say it isn't so."

Ron Daniels – President of Johns Hopkins University

“Jed has been an extraordinary champion for Baltimore and its film community – past, present and future. His dedication to the art and business of film and those great artists who use it to tell extraordinary stories is unparalleled. From the germ of an idea, Jed transformed the MdFF into the important and distinctive festival it is today. He saw the impact it could have on Baltimore and inspired others to share his remarkable vision for a festival and now for a year-round theater that enhances cultural and economic opportunity for our artists and our entire community.”

Sammy Hoi – President of Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA)

“Jed is a cultural hero in Baltimore. In founding and steering the Maryland Film Festival, he has shaped an annual forum that serves and builds a film-loving community in our city and the region. Over the years, so many Baltimore and Baltimore-relevant filmmakers and their stories have emerged from and been lifted by the Film Festival. With his vision and dedicated work to renovate and re-open the historical Parkway Theatre, Jed has now enabled year-round programming of quality independent films in Baltimore with a richness that was unimaginable just a few years ago. Bravo and thank you, Jed!”